8th Jan – I’ll be at the excellent Shapiro Tuesdays over at Lazy Susan’s in Perth, mostly trying out new material. If you like watching comics struggle through half-thought out bits then come on down! The process can be as much fun as the finished product some times. Venue time and details here.

19th Jan – MC’ing at the Little Creatures Loft in Fremantle. One of the best regular comedy spots in WA and you get the nice seaside breeze of Freo. Ticket and venue info here.

25th Jan – Performing at Rottnest Island. Take a boat away from Perth and watch the decapitated heads roll up onto the shore. More details when I get them.

1st Feb – MC’ing at Lazy Susan’s Comedy Den. One of my favorite gigs of all time. Watch me be all loosey goosey with what is sure to be a great lineup of local and regional acts. Ticket and venue info here.

8th Feb – Doing a show up in Kalgoorlie at the famous Comedy Hour. Watch me and the hilarious Tien Tran bring the laughs to an amphitheater full of fly in-fly out sex workers and gold miners. Ticket venue details here.

20th to 24th Feb – Performing at the Perth Fringe Festival! Nesh Sooriyan will be opening for me and I’ll be headlining in a show we call EXTREMIST INTENTIONS. Buy tickets and venue details here and if you want to get in touch with us you can contact us here.

My TEDx Margallah talk is finally online. Audio quality is terrible, which I can’t really help. Posting the entire transcript underneath if you are particularly dedicated.

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TRANSCRIPT

On October 18th 2007, I saw a man’s lungs burning. I was a News Producer at the time,
working for a local channel and had been sent out to cover the late Benazir Bhutto’s
arrival in Karachi. I wasn’t there when the bomb exploded but I did get there shortly
enough after that to traumatize me for life.

Now I had been doing comedy for a while up until then. I actually started performing
stand-up comedy in 2004. But it wasn’t until that moment, standing there and seeing
flames coming out of a chest that had burst open and trying to un-see something while I
was still seeing it, that I really understood why I did comedy.

See up until then I thought I did comedy because I was a Paranoid narcissist. See
narcissism is the belief that the whole world is thinking about you. The problem is, when
you couple it with deep-rooted insecurity like mine, you end up with paranoia. The whole
world is talking about me and no one is saying anything nice. And you would think that
I would then not go on stage in front of thousands of people…okay hundreds…on a
good night. Like a great night. Okay fine, I wouldn’t go on stage in front of a few 10’s
of people and open myself up to more scrutiny. but that’s narcissism. It’s sitting there
thinking the whole world hates me, but at least they are thinking about me. It’s like being
addicted to someone coming over every day and kicking you in the groin. Yeah it hurts
but at least for a while you have some company.

But on that night, my instinctive reaction, standing there surrounded by enough body
parts that when I got home there was so much blood on my clothes that my wife thought
I had been injured, my instinctive reaction, was “I need to do comedy.”

Now I understand it is a highly inappropriate reaction to have, but then I am clearly
hardwired to think in inappropriate ways. See, for me comedy became important that
day because I didn’t want to live in this other world. I would much rather live in a world
in which people laugh and don’t take things seriously. Instead of everything being so
serious that it costs lives.

That’s the problem with a lot of people now. We insulate ourselves from the world
because of the daily horrors. Have you noticed the way people walk? No one ever
traipses or struts or even skips. When was the last time you saw someone skipping? If
we see someone smiling we don’t trust them. Our reaction to that is “What are doing!?
Stop that! It’s freaking me out! Why are you so happy? What do you know that we don’t!
Hey he’s up to something!” We don’t even drive in a relaxed way anymore. Travel used
to be fun. Now it’s just hunched over, knuckles whitening with rage, “You wanna cut in
front me, did you cut in front of me how dare you cut in front of me I’m going to cut in
front of that guy for cutting in front of me”.

No one ever hugs anymore. Have you seen how people hug on Eid? It’s this weird
defensive posture. When in fact, maybe all we need is a hug. Maybe that’s what Al-
Qaeda and the Taliban are so angry about. Think about it. It’s a bunch of guys, most of
whom were taken from their mommy’s at a young age and have grown up surrounded
by men who are obsessed with violence. The Taliban never have vacation days. It’s

a full time lifestyle. There are no casual fridays for the Taliban. What would that be
anyway? Suicide vest with shorts? No. And most importantly, no women. That’s what
the suicide jacket is, it’s just a mommies arms holding them so tight they explode. That’s
what all suicide bombers are saying. They are saying “somebody hold me.” Now I’m
not saying we should start hugging the Taliban, but you have to admit, it would make a
really interesting charter for an NGO.

We are so isolated from each other that we don’t even want to touch one another
anymore. No physical contact. We would much rather view the world through tiny phone
cameras and screens. Have you ever been to a concert? Or seen something amazing?
Everyone is looking at it through the phone screen. We have all become Tourists of the
Now. It’s gotten so bad that if the Apocalypse starts tomorrow. You know, the end times
when mountains will be as carded wool and the oceans will turn to blood and Gog and
Magog will rise and the sky will rip apart and the dead will rise…we will all be standing
there like this [mime phone in hand]. “Wow. Look at that. I’m uploading it to youtube,
you gotta go and “like” it. Is “The Day of Judgement is at Hand” 140 characters?

People don’t even communicate properly anymore. I used to be an RJ at a local radio
station and I could actually tell how old someone was just by the way they texted in. If
it’s someone my age the punctuation was all proper and the spellings were attended
to. If it’s someone young it sounded like R2D2 having a heart attack. RRRRPPPT
DRRRRTTT. How do you say “I Love you” with real emotional resonance if that’s
how you communcate. “I heart U colon with a capital P”. Twitter is so successful
because 140 characters isn’t a limitation on them, it’s more than they can manage. 140
characters is a full length essay.

Maybe thats what happens to all languages after a few generations. It just devolves into
guttural sounds. “G.T.” Have you heard of this? Short for “Get Together”. Are we now so
busy that we have to abbreviate “Get Together” so that we can free up that extra half-
second of time for…what…scratching ourselves. This linguistic laziness is bound to get
out of hand. Soon we will be abbreviating everything. You meet someone at work and it
wont be “Hey, how you doing” and “Fine thanks, yourself?” It’ll be “HHYD”. “FTY!”
And then the de-evolution will continue until we are communicating like cave-people. Go
up to a girl and *snort and thump chest*.
In the end it will just be physical actions. That’s what Egyptian hieroglyphics are;
invitations to the latest GT at Tutenkhamen’s place.

A sign of how disconnected we’ve become is in how shallow we all are. I’m shallow, I’ll
admit it openly. I am so shallow I make myself sick. It’s quite pathetic. Do you know I
only help people based on how miserable they look. I’m superficial about charity. If you
look dirty, then I’ll give you money. But if you look nice and clean then I won’t give you
money. So if you are a beggar with self-respect and self-worth who thinks “I’m going to
beg but I won’t look like I’ve been sleeping in dirt” then I won’t give you money. There is
even a specific amount of dirt that you are allowed to have on you for you to illicit charity
from me. For example, if you have flies on your face, then I’ll give you money. But if you
have too many flies on your face then “eugh! no thank you!” And if you have too few

flies on your face then “Why what’s wrong with you? Where are you working part time
that you don’t need too many flies.”

What’s weird is that the worse things get the more disconnected we get from the reality
of it all. We don’t want to look at the true problems in Pakistan. So instead we try to bury
it all under a blanket of patriotism. What ends up happening though is that Pakistan is
becoming like an obnoxious kid. You know those children, who shove your kid down
and then pee in the pool. And then their parents are always like “We love you!”. You
ever look in those parents eyes and see the fear? There is panic there, because if they
don’t say “I love you” enough times they will have to deal with the fact that the kid is a
brat and who has the time to fix him. It’s not the kids fault, no one told him he is doing
anything wrong. It’s the idiot lazy parents who are to blame. Pakistan is becoming that
kid and we are the parents.

Everything is a conspiracy theory. We are all becoming Uncle Munawwar. I have this
old uncle in my family, his name is Uncle Munawar. I seriously believe though that he
isn’t just my uncle but everyone’s uncle. Because everyone has an Uncle Munawar
in their family. You’ll be able to recognize him quite easily. This kind of uncle is the
one who believes in every possible conspiracy theory. He’s like an international level
paranoid.

“The C.I.A. had made a projected World map for the year 2010. Pakistan isn’t on it.”
“America is already in the second phase of its plan to launch an all out attack on Iran.
Then we are next.”
“The Jews are planning on bombing Mecca and America is helping them with all kinds
of ground-attack plans.”
And so on…

And it doesn’t help that all his conspiracy theories are coming true. Drone attacks. CIA
agents running around Lahore shooting people. He predicted both of those! The thing I
started wondering is where is he getting this information from. If any of it is true then the
CIA. really needs to work on its secrecy. If my Uncle Munawar is getting top secret info
from his daily diet of Nawa-E-Waqt and Geo News then they really must re-think there
policies. Are there meetings in the basement of the White House, with the President
Obama and his Joint Chiefs of Staff, all strategizing:
Hillary Clinton is there, turning to President Obama and saying, “That is our attack plan
Sir, if this goes through the Islamic world can be wiped out by dawn.”
Obama mulls over the detailed world map lying on the table in front of him. All kinds of
attack strategies highlighted and drawn out for him.
“Sir…what do you think? Should we begin?”
“Just a moment, I need to be sure,” says Obama turning to his left and looking at his
most trusted advisor, “Uncle Munawar, what do you think?

We have to change the way we see ourselves so we can then change the way the world
sees us. Because right now the world sees a scary place. You know what I mean. Our
passport is basically a voucher for free rectal exams, redeemable in every airport of the

world. Every time people think of Pakistan they think of an angry mob burning an effigy.
They probably think effigy production is a major part of our economy. They think we
have ads for effigies:

V/O (FEMALE): Does the fire inside you burn?

V/O (FEMALE): Do you want to express yourself in flame?

V/O (MALE): It’s time to burn things down! Now you can buy two effigy’s for the price of
one at Effigy Hut! That’s right two for the price of one! Double the combustible maza! Or
avail our special group-discount and buy enough effigy’s to let your hatred of Western
nations be seen from space! And for a limited time only, special super-realistic Salman
Rushdie effigy free with every purchase. That’s right! Free!

V/O (FEMALE): Burn things outside they way you burn on the inside. Effigy Hut.
V/O (MALE): Keep all effigies out of reach of children. Department of Health.
Government of Pakistan.

People email me from outside Pakistan all the time and their views on us are just
confusing. One gentleman emailed me to ask me if all Pakistani’s live in a cave. Now let
me repeat that sentence. He emailed me. To ask if I lived in a cave. How did he think I
was connected to the internet in my cave? Was there a wifi router nailed to a stalactite?
Emailed me that. One guy asked me jokingly why burkha women look like ninjas. You
know, black outfits, eyes only visible. Haha. Ninjas. I always tell those people the truth.
I tell them its because muslim women are trained in the ancient and honorable art of
ninjitsu. They all carry a katana blade and shurikens. I thought I was helping muslim
women roam around in the world without being harassed. Instead they banned the hijab
in France. So sorry about that.

One girl even said she didn’t know Pakistanis had sex. How did she think we
reproduce? Are we supposed to be cloning? Or maybe we just spawn from magical
pools of ambiotic goo.

I mean here we are worrying that Westerners think we are all terrorists, and it turns
out what we need to worry about is our image as asexual cave dwellers. Like the orks
in Lord of the Rings. No wonder they hate and fear us! As far as they know Saruman
raised us to kill Frodo!

So we need to change our perspective on ourselves. If we take ourselves and
everything about us so seriously then we can never fix the problems. Which is why
comedy is important. Nothing can tear something down faster than a farce. We need to
be ready to ridicule things. Because if you can laugh at something then you take away
its power. The farce outlives the reality.

This all came to me that day, standing between blood and body parts. Actually, to be
honest most of this came to me later. At that moment all I felt was a need to go home

and hug my wife. Which is something we all need to do. Not hug my wife I mean. Oh,
you know what I mean.

Something happened to me recently to prove the power of comedy. I was driving home
from work and a guy stuck a gun in my face and asked for my phone and wallet. Now in
Karachi, that’s basically such a common thing that it doesn’t even bother us anymore.
In fact, if you haven’t been robbed at gunpoint then you aren’t really a Karachiite. So
he took my phone and my wallet and then he turned to me and said, and I promise this
happened, “Don’t be angry.”

And because I am an idiot, before I could stop myself, I said “You took everything else,
at least leave me my anger.”

And he laughed. So I laughed. Then he thought about it for a second and gave me back
my phone and wallet. I was so confused I thought it was a candid camera situation. And
he said “you look like a decent person, I can’t rob you.” And he walked away.

Just like that. Comedy took him by surprise more than a gun took me by surprise. It
broke through the violence for just long enough to make a difference. So remember that
lesson. Because the alternative is too depressing to consider. The alternative is that he
was such a bad judge of character that he thought I was decent.

I miss heartbreak most of all. Those grim moments after rejection, when it feels like no one in the world knows pain like you do and the only salve is singing along to Morrissey and smoking too many cigarettes. Dressing in black, for extra emphasis so that the outward appearance matches the inward despair, always helps. I used to wallow in those moments of misery. Shun sunlight and happy thoughts. Think of suicide and complete withdrawal from society while muttering things like “I will die alone” and “No one loves me”, lines as old as the first caveman being spurned by the first cavewoman. “I think of you like a gatherer,” she probably said, the cold hearted Neanderthal wretch, and off he went to make cave drawings of women being eaten by Mammoths and invent wheels to run himself over with.

Being married saves one from that kind of pain. And no matter what married men tell you, being made to pick up after yourself or having to explain that working late at the office doesn’t involve expert fellatio and booze filled bacchanals, are poor replacements. For a masochist like me who suffered serial rejection enough to develop a taste for it, that is all I miss about being single. Other married men fantasize about being single again just so they can finally sleep with that girl in the cubicle across from theirs without worrying about the wife finding out. They are fools. Their fantasy is dependent on a self-believing lie that prior to marriage they were masters of the art of seduction. I have no such illusions. The years before I was married were mostly spent pining and whining and I have no doubt that were I single again, that girl in the cubicle across from mine would tell me she thinks of me like bloody friend.

Between the ages of 11 to 22, I confessed love to a total of 5 girls. I will have no truck with rationalizing fools who jump up at every opportunity to point out that it wasn’t love but infatuation and true love is only when blah blah blah. It felt like love at the time and that is all that matters. In seventh grade, Mehreen (not her real name, as it only seems fair to save these women the shame of being associated with my youth) was my sun and moon, my stars and my skies. Her very existence was evidence to me of a greater being who loved beauty. In retrospect she was probably a pimply girl with bad hair, braces and a terrible posture, but given that I was a pimply boy with bad hair, thick spectacles and terrible posture, I was not being too discerning. When, after a year of nervously circling her like an insecure shark, I finally passed her a note in class with “I love you, will you go out with me?” written on it, it was the bravest thing I had ever done; braver than any act of bravery committed by any valiant hero throughout the ages. Those Allied soldiers charging the beaches of Normandy would have saluted my courage and that Roman warrior who stood facing an army of barbarians would have given me a medal of valor. So when she said she thought of me like her brother/friend/first cousin who she was too close to marry/pet Labrador puppy/etcetera, it broke me to pieces. The wallowing that followed was particularly epic. As was the wailing and gnashing of teeth that succeeded the rejection by Ayesha, that quietly pretty girl in A-levels. When Laileh, a Palestinian girl in college with curls you could happily asphyxiate yourself with said “no” I almost enlisted in Al Qaeda.

It’s no wonder then that I stopped asking women out. Traumatized, I could hear the rejection even before I had asked the question. Which makes me all the more grateful for the women who decided to take the initiative on themselves. Had they not subsequently punched my heart like Van Damme executing the Dim Mak on an innocent brick in Blood Sport, I would still think of them fondly. Meha met me at an airport and had wooed me by the time the flight landed. Six months later she moved away to another country after telling me what she felt for me wasn’t strong enough to compete with the job offer she had. Tiffany pursued me with the single-minded zeal of a serial killer and then cheated on me with the man she went on to marry and subsequently divorce. The years between and after those two were filled with cigarette smoke, dreary songs on loop and lots of forlorn looks. My wife, God bless her soul, worked away at my insecurities with the patience of an archaeologist when she decided to find me attractive. I took no chances and asked her to marry me the moment I realised she wasn’t just aiming for a closer shot at what was left of my fragile ego. Seven years on and she still claims to love me and I am not going to let her think about it long enough to second-guess it. Still, there are those moments, when life seems particularly pleasant and peaceful and safe, that I crave the suffering of heartbreak. For too long it was all I knew. Now it feels like a phantom limb. Or a ghost voice whispering “I still think of you like a friend.”

I wrote this for a local newspaper but they chose not to run it. Don’t blame them given that I knew it was a bit of a long shot and their decision to drop it is more to do with my own safety than any concern they might have for themselves. Still, I spent too much time looking up slang terms for penis to let this go to waste. Thus reproducing it here while I work up a new, less crotch-focused column.

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American’s know the truth: nothing distracts like a penis.

Recently, Anthony Weiner, a member of U.S. House of Representatives, decided to go online and expose his own member. The visual homage to his last name sent copy-editors across the United States into a penile-pun frenzy, all while being grateful he hadn’t been born Anthony Anus instead. What happened next should be closely studied by our own political and military leadership. Despite currently being shafted by its own economy, trapped in a war that it erected around itself and with a Republican party that is preparing to mount an election, America spent the next few days only making phallus jokes. As discussions of Weiner’s wiener filled every blog, newspaper and tv channel, Americans forgot about how their country had been completely cocked up since Dick Cheney’s days in office, with no sign of their problems shrinking. Their interest pricked, their government is free to dicker with their rights and waste their tax money willy nilly.

In Pakistan we need such a distraction. Our armed forces and government have exposed the common man’s helplessness by ignoring our every plea and urinating on our dignity and self-respect. The least they could do is flash us with some attention diversion. Now before you misunderstand, let me clarify that I am not, under any circumstances, demanding that Babar Awan show us his mini-doctorate or Rehman Malik take photos of his interior ministry. Nor am I advocating for Nawaz Sharif to let loose his Punjabi pee-pee, Imran Khan his little tiger or any General let loose his missile. After all, they have all already done that on a metaphorical level.

Just give us something ridiculously funny to focus on while you continue to do everything in your substantial power to destroy our lives. In other countries, viral videos are clips on the internet that show kittens sneezing and skateboarders getting their nethers smashed. In Pakistan it is footage of innocent people being beaten to death or shot in public. We can’t watch mindless soap operas and sitcoms until someone develops solar powered televisions and we can’t go outside because the gangs of marauding political party workers are as likely to shoot us as each other. Do you see our dilemma? We have been shown that we have no power to affect the change we need and we don’t have anything else we can put that frustrated energy into. Any hope we had of seeing things improved have died when we realized that even global embarrassment like the Abbotabad incident and the murder of Saleem Shehzad have brought you no closer to repentance. So we sink deeper into depression, turn on one another and wait for the miracles to save us.

So let us laugh instead. Do something silly and hilarious that makes you seem less cruel and sadistic. Even Bin Laden became more human when we realized he was a porn fiend just like the rest of us. It won’t change the fact that you are criminally insane and will probably eventually kill us all so you can ride to safety on a wave of mutilation and murder, but at least we won’t notice the pain anymore. So stop being so selfish and start being creative. It won’t cost you anything. A picture of a political pecker will go a long way towards your own ease of mind. After all, if we are laughing at your diminutive dongs, we certainly won’t be out on the streets protesting and slowing down your destructive deadlines.

Stop wasting time, think of the greater good and post a picture of your penis. If nothing else, it will help us see what has been screwing us all this time.

Wrote this for an Indian think tank that wanted an article on “a best case-worst case scenario for Pakistan from now on; is time running out or can Pakistan turn itself around, quickly?”

I don’t think they got what they wanted out of this piece since they never published it. However, I still like it. So here it is:

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CHAOS WITH A CHEWY CENTER

“Pakistan is on the brink of collapse.”
“The country is about to be swallowed up by internal strife.”
“The rest of the world is running out of patience.”
“Lo I beheld a pale horse and it’s name was Death. “

Oddly, none of these proclamations create even the slightest sense of panic in the average Pakistani anymore. Instead, what you will get, is a glazed over look of boredom. We’ve been here before, too many times and we will be here again. In fact, one might argue, Pakistanis are so comfortable on the brink of chaos that we have built our house there. Laid down roots. Every morning we battle the forces of uncertainty with the same sense of routine you have when you brush your teeth.

Wake up. Make unsuccessful attempt at seduction towards spouse. Crawl out of bed while struggling with sense of self-loathing. Battle the forces of chaos that threaten to swallow the country whole. Make breakfast. Read the newspaper. Watch the sprinklers come on over the front lawn. Rail against outside forces that are influencing the future of the nation. Rail against internal forces that are affecting the future of the nation. Go to work.

That’s the greatest tragedy and the greatest strength of Pakistan. That despite it’s mismanagement and endemic corruption and continuous struggle between moderation and extremism, it somehow continues to exist. I’ve been hearing stories about how in 10 years time the country will be no more since I was 10 years old. How one approaches those stories is what reveals oneself as either an optimist or a pessimist. The pessimist sees the continued existence of this doomed narrative as a sign that something in our collective souls is utterly broken. The optimist sees it as proof of our exemplary resilience. I, myself, vacillate between the two states like a manic schizophrenic. Some days I am proud of the fact that despite the waves of extremism and suicide bombings and drone attacks, we have a thriving arts and culture scene. That I can still find the spaces to go on stage and talk for an hour about the comedy inherent in my penis and the endless male quest for the perfect porn. Other days though I feel like Nero tuning up his fiddle.

So what is the future of Pakistan? If, like Nostradamus, I gaze into my crystal ball and attempt to divine the what-is-to-come, I see a continued battle between two ideologies: The conservative elements who see Pakistan as a state built for their violent, intolerant and aggressively oppressive form of Islam. And the Liberal elements who see Pakistan as a state build for their open, understanding, passive and accepting form of Islam. Unfortunately, the former group expresses their ideas in the form of combustible humans and the latter in the form of art, poetry and literature. The pen may be mightier than the sword but it takes a beating when put up against the exploding jacket. Fortunately though, both sides are actually quite small. Their battle, then, isn’t for the future of Pakistan really, but for the immense, undecided moderates. These are the people who cheered the death of Salman Taseer and mourned the prosecution of Dr. Afia, but also want time to go on Facebook and look at pictures of their best friend’s girlfriend while scouring Youtube for Shakira videos. They are misinformed and over-opinionated. They are also not as dangerous as they look but much more frightening than they should be. What’s worse is that they will never pick sides.

So things will continue as is. 20 years from now we will still be talking about how Pakistan is on the brink of collapse and things are falling apart because the center cannot hold. It’s up to you to decide if that’s a good thing or bad.